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Category: Zillow.com

Starbucks is scrapping its six-year-old wireless Internet partnership with T-Mobile in favor of a deal with AT&T. The Associated Press reports that customers who use a Starbucks card will receive two hours of free wireless access each day, while those who spend more time online at Starbucks will pay $3.99 for two-hour sessions. Monthly memberships cost $19.99, with the AP reporting that the new service plans will be unveiled this spring with more than 7,000 company-operated domestic stores offering the service by the end of the year. …

The New York Times takes a look at the online real estate category, noting that despite problems in the housing sector, startups such as Redfin, Trulia and Zillow.com are still attracting visitors and customers. …

Zillow.com has increased the number of homes that it collects information on and improved the accuracy of its online home valuations, known as Zestimates, by a national average of 12 percent. The Seattle company, backed with $87 million in venture funding, said it now has data on 80 million U.S. homes and valuations on 67 million of those homes. With an estimated 91 million homes in the U.S., Spencer Rascoff has some information on more than three-quarters of the homes in the country. …

Saying that the “business has done better than we could have hoped so far,” Redfin Chief Executive Glenn Kelman today is noting that his Seattle online real estate brokerage has refunded more than $10 million to home buyers since February 2006. …

Seattle-based Zillow.com has upgraded its search functionality and redesigned more than 7,000 new neighborhood pages in an effort to keep people on the site longer and make the information easier to consume. …

TechCrunch reports that Amazon.com is the latest investor in Bill Me Later, a Maryland company that has raised about $200 million in capital. More on how it works from The Baltimore Sun, which notes that the service “will pay retailers for you, then send you a bill.” As part of its investment, terms of which were not disclosed, Amazon.com will incorporate the Bill Me Later payment technology on its Web site. …